A father says what health care law means personally

NEW PALTZ — The Supreme Court's health care decision came as a relief to Greg Correll for reasons that go beyond the personal.

Correll is an independent businessman who creates online communities for such institutions as Yale University. He has two daughters attending college.

Under the Affordable Care Act, he'll be able to carry both daughters on his family's health insurance plan until they are age 26.

It's one of the act's best-known and most popular programs.

“(Thursday's decision) makes it easier for us to support them and help them get an education,” he said.

Under the law, fewer people will die as a result of being poor, he said, and caring for those who most desperately need health care is the sign of a “civilized society.”

But there's a larger societal aspect to the law that Correll feels has been overlooked: Affordable and accessible health care will protect more of us from illness than is usually thought, he believes.

“There's something called 'herd immunity' that relates to the susceptibility people have to infectious diseases,” he said. “As long as it's difficult or impossible for the poor to get adequate or affordable health care, the greater the risk that infectious diseases can spread.”

In this way, he said, “the rich and the people who oppose the law” will also benefit from it.